


In Wolven Blood

by Vengeful_Authoress



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Corrupt Armies, F/F, Government Experimentation, M/M, POV Lydia Martin, Werewolf Hunting, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9102169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vengeful_Authoress/pseuds/Vengeful_Authoress
Summary: The zombie virus swept through most of the world in less than a month, leaving only a few cities intact enough to provide any kind of safety. Beacon Hills is one of these safe havens. When Lydia Martin meets the beautiful Allison Argent on the road, she decides to accompany Allison on her quest to find her father, and this quest leads them to Beacon Hills. But something sinister is going on in the town. The army has discovered the existence of werewolves and that werewolves are immune to the virus. They send a task force, headed by Kate Argent, out to capture any werewolves they can find and bring them back to the base camp for testing and experimentation. Lydia and Allison team up with Scott and Stiles, whose friends have been captured, in an effort to stop this horrific practice.Side fic, slow updates.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! Welcome to my zombie AU. I figured, I like zombies, I like Teen Wolf, why not put the two together? Also the world of fanfiction needs more lesbians so here you go. If you enjoy this, please head on over to my profile to check out my Supernatural/Teen Wolf crossover or my Legend of Zelda horror fic. I love to hear from my readers, so definitely leave feedback in the comments section. 
> 
> (Also, is the summary okay? Sometimes I have trouble with those).

I walked down a quiet side street and kicked at a loose rock, sending it skittering across the pavement and off the side of the road into the overgrown grass. The sun beat down on my head, seeking to scorch my scalp even through my ball cap. The straps of my backpack dug into my shoulders, and a dull ache went through my left knee with every step.

We all slept while the world died.

We woke up the next morning, and there were monsters in our streets, monsters that used to be us, monsters that were hungry for what we had. The world didn’t die all in one night, but it was the beginning of the end, as they say. It started in the small, rural towns. Garbled reports trickled in through the Internet, shaky home videos of pixelated horrors flooding our Facebook feeds. They said it was just a virus. They said it was nothing to worry about. Then it spread to the big cities. The homeless caught it first, then the elderly, then the sick. The hospitals were the first to fall. After that, it came to the streets. It came for the rich, the poor, the middle class. It made no distinction between race or sex or religion. The world fell to war, a war that it was slowly losing one month after the first night.

I sighed as I looked around. I was in some neighborhood of some tiny crap town in the middle of nowhere. The houses were small and ramshackle, and were probably rundown even before the world died. The windows were all boarded over or broken, and some of the doors were smeared with bloody handprints.

The wind shifted, and I heard something rustle behind one of the houses. I stopped walking, pulling a hunting knife from my belt, and strained my ears. The rustle came again, followed by a hollow thud. My stomach tightened into knots, and I flicked the red tail of my braid over my shoulder so it would be out of the way. Taking a deep breath, I moved forward a few steps, wanting desperately to turn around and go the other way, but I didn’t want to leave something unknown behind me.

I kept walking until I had a clear line of sight between two of the houses, and then I stopped, my hand going to my mouth as my stomach threatened to rush up my throat. One of the the monsters was caught on a low chain link fence, waving its arms in its struggle to get free.

Most people called them zombies, but I felt that word fell awkwardly on the tongue. They were undead. They were walking corpses, reanimated by some kind of unknown virus. This one was a woman, turned only a few days ago. Her skin had a grayish cast to it and her eyes a yellow tinge. There was a gaping, bloody hole in the side of her throat that stained her white blouse. Her wandering eyes locked onto me, and her jaw moved up and down, her teeth clacking together.

I looked at the knife in my hand. I could just leave her. It didn’t look like she would get out anytime soon. I slid my weapon back into my belt and kept walking. I still didn’t like killing them, didn’t even like getting that close to them. The undead radiated emptiness, coldness. It crept into my bones every time I got close. Sometimes, I could even hear screaming in my head.

I left the neighborhood behind, and soon the road was enveloped in trees. My black boots tapped against the baking pavement as I shifted my backpack so it lay more comfortably on my shoulders.

I didn’t know where I was going. It was just important that I moved away from where I started. Where it started. Where he died. I left home two weeks ago, and I had yet to see another living person. Only the dead. My mother had pleaded with me to stay. “Lydia,” she said. “Don’t be stupid. Come with us to the refugee camp. The army will keep us safe.”

I shook my head. I could feel the death surrounding the camp, coming towards it like fog rolling down a hill. So I left. I left, and I started walking, and I hadn’t stopped since.

I knew I was somewhere in California; I had seen the welcome sign at the side of the road five days ago, but other than that, I was completely lost. It didn’t matter, really. Anywhere was better than there.

I glanced up at the sky. It was starting to turn red as the sun dipped towards the horizon, meaning it was time to find shelter for the night. The easiest thing to do would be to go back to the little neighborhood and hole up in one of the houses, but I already knew there was one corpse there, and where there was one, there were usually others. And I didn’t want to deal with that.

I turned off the road and headed into the forest. After a few minutes, I found a tall, thick oak tree that had wide branches set low enough to the ground to climb up. I pushed the sleeves of my shirt up and grabbed the closest one, swinging myself into the tree with a grunt of effort. I clambered up and up until I found a wide fork to wedge myself into. There was a rope in my pack, and I pulled it out, looping it around my waist and tying myself to the branch, cinching the knot as tight as possible. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least I wouldn’t fall out of the tree as I slept.

I poked through the rest of my bag, searching for dinner, but all I found were two Cliff bars and a can of peaches. I ate half of a chocolate chip Cliff bar and washed it down with some water, carefully folding the other half up and tucking it away. Then I took out a paperback book and read until the light disappeared.

* * *

_Blood. Screaming. Shadows flashing across the windows. My muscles locked in place._

_“Lydia. Pass me another board.” Jackson’s voice cuts through the haze, and I look up to see his bright blue eyes boring into my face. With shaking hands, I pick a board up off the stack and pass it to him. My mother helps hold it steady against the door as he hammers it into place. The sound of gunfire fills the streets outside._

_“How many more do we have?” he asks._

_“Uh…three,” I say, looking over the pile. I can feel death coming for us like a tidal wave._

_Fists bang against the door from the outside and pound against the windows which have already been boarded up._

_“What are we going to do?” I ask. I pass Jackson another board as he reaches for it._

_“We’re going to stay here,” my mother says. “The army is outside handling it. We just have to stay here until they give us the all clear.”_

_“And what if they don’t?” I jump as another fist joins the cacophony that’s already pounding away._

_“They will,” Jackson says. He puts the hammer down and wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. I bury my face in his neck, concentrating on the scent of his cologne. I can feel death wrapped around him, but I try hard to pretend I’m imagining it._

_The first window shatters then. Shredded fingers poke through the cracks between the boards, searching for purchase. “Shit,” Jackson says and lets go of me._

_The moans of the dead fill our house, wrapping around my head and worming into my ears. The sound is all around me, all encompassing, and I clap my hands to my ears, falling to my knees, but that doesn’t make the moans go away. If anything, they get louder._

* * *

 I opened my eyes to find the early morning sun filtering through the trees, the sound of the moans from my dream still ringing in my ears. The rope cut painfully into my stomach, and I sat up slowly, a twig digging into my back.

The moans didn’t go away as I woke up fully. I glanced down at the ground, and my heart leapt for my throat. Three corpses pawed at the trunk of the tree, staring sightlessly up at me. “Shit,” I breathed.

I put my pack on and tightened the straps, then I took a deep breath, my stomach churning. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this one. The corpses were spaced almost evenly around the tree, leaving me know clear space to jump to. I pulled my knife from my belt. Maybe I could drop it on one of them, though if it shifted even a bit, I would be weaponless and in an even worse position than before.

It was worth a shot. In fact, it was my only shot. Slowly, I climbed down the tree, picking a man with glasses as my target. I perched on a thick branch and held the end of the knife hilt in my fingers, tongue poked out as I squinted at the corpse’s grey head. I took a deep breath, steadying my hands, and then I let the knife go.

As the knife fell, flashing silver in the light, the corpse wobbled to the side, and the blade stuck into its shoulder harmlessly. “Shit,” I said again as it waved its arms at me.

Two more corpses came out of the trees, drawn by the sound of their hungry companions.

“Oh come on,” I groaned.

There was nothing else to do. I took a deep breath, hopped to the adjacent branch, and then jumped to the ground.

I hit an uneven patch of dirt, and my ankle rolled, pain stabbing up to my already sprained knee. I cried out as I tumbled to the ground. A hand grabbed my boot, and I flipped over, panicked, to see the corpse with glasses on the ground beside me. I kicked at it with my free foot, the other corpses closing in around me.

“Shit,” I squeaked, pounding at the man with my heel and flailing my trapped leg, my heart pounding loud enough to drown everything else out. A second corpse, a woman with matted hair, dropped to its knees beside me, and I squirmed away from its reaching hands. I managed to catch it around the throat with one hand, but then there was a third corpse on my other side, and I couldn’t see through the film over my eyes.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled, my arm shaking from the effort of holding the corpse at bay.

And then, without warning, the woman with matted hair collapsed, an arrow through her head. I yanked my arm away as she fell, eyes wide. A second arrow came out of nowhere and slammed into the head of the glasses man, and he collapsed on top of me. I gasped, shaking with relief.

The corpse to my left snarled at me, and I squirmed desperately out from under the glasses man, leaning forward to yank my knife out of his shoulder. I scrambled to my feet just as she reached me. I steeled myself, moved in between her arms, and buried my knife in the top of her head.

I felt the brush of death behind me and spun around just in time to sway out of the way of a reaching hand. A corpse leered at me with bloody teeth. I stumbled back, but another arrow split its head before it could take another step. I caught a glimpse of the final corpse out of the corner of my eye, and I ran around it so I could bury my knife in its skull from behind.

The corpse dropped like a rock, and I stood there, breaking heavily and shaking a little. Then I glanced around, searching for whoever saved me. A woman stood in between two tall trees, a compound bow with a knocked arrow pointed at the ground. Her dark brown hair was braided down her back, though two small curls drifted across her face.

“I…hello,” I said.

The woman stalked forward, eyes darting around the forest for any more threats.

“Were you bit?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Scratched?”

“No. Thanks for the save.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was the first person I’d seen since I’d left home. Her face was round and symmetrical, her dark brown eyes intense.

“Sure. What are you doing out here alone?’ The woman finally released the tension on her bow, sliding the arrow back into her quiver. She stared walking between the corpses, yanking her arrows out of their skulls and wiping the heads off.

“What are you doing out here alone?” I asked, putting a hand on my hip.

“I’m scavenging,” she said.

“I was sleeping in that tree.” I pointed up at the oak. “When I woke up, there were three corpses surrounding me.”

“Did you know there’s a village about twenty minutes east?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I passed through there, but I saw a couple of corpses so I decided to keep moving.”

“Well, best to keep on moving.” The woman slung her bow over her shoulder. “There could be more of them in the area.”

“Right, yeah,” I agreed. I hesitated. I suddenly didn’t want to be alone any more. This woman was competent, she was strong, she was beautiful. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, watched the way her curls shifted in the wind, and I felt my heart flutter. “Hey, where are you heading?”

The woman looked at my suspiciously, and her hand twitched towards the knife at her belt. “Why?”

“I just…I’ve been on my own for a while. It would be nice to travel with someone for a while.”

She continued to stare at me for a long moment, and I steeled my spine and met her sharp gaze. “I’m trying to find my father,” she said finally. “He was on a hunting trip when all of this started. He called me after the first reports hit the news and told me to meet him at our cabin, but he never showed.”

“Do you have any idea where he went hunting?” I asked.

“He told me he was going to Beacon Hills to find an old friend, and then they were going to head off,” the woman said.

“Beacon Hills,” I repeated. The name sounded familiar. “That’s in California, isn’t it?”

The woman nodded. “It’s about a three day’s walk from here.”

“Could I come with you?” I stuck my knife back into my belt, still bloody.

She shrugged. “Sure, why not. Two is safer than one.”

I smiled at her, and she gave me a small grin in return, the intense light finally fading from her eyes and leaving them soft. She stuck out her hand to me. “My name is Allison. Allison Argent. And you?”

“I’m Lydia Martin,” I said and shook her hand, the callouses on her fingers rough against my skin.

“Nice to meet you,” Allison said. “Come on. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two 

For a long time, Allison and I walked in silence. Allison had a lot more food than I did, and when we stopped for lunch and she discovered how low I was running, she gave me half of her stash. The food made my bag bulge out in a way that it hadn’t in a long time. “Thanks,” I said.

“How long have you been out here?” Allison asked. Somewhere, she had found a few fresh apples, and she bit into one as she looked at me.

“Since about the start,” I said. “Three weeks ago.”

“Really?” Allison looked impressed.

“You’re the first person I’ve seen since I left home,” I admitted. “My town was overrun, but the army swept in and cleaned it up. They wanted to take everyone to a refugee camp about twenty miles away, but I just…had a bad feeling about it.”

It had been more than just a bad feeling. I was a banshee, capable of sensing and predicting death. I’d been born with these powers, though I still didn’t fully understand them, and sometimes I wished I didn’t have them. It wasn’t an altogether pleasant ability.

“Probably smart.” Allison crunched all the way through her apple, seeds and all, and flicked the stem to the ground.

I stared at her in shock, then glanced down at the tiny stem. “Did you just…eat the core of your apple?”

“Yeah. So what?” Allison shrugged like it was no big deal.

“That’s weird.” I smirked at her, pursing my lips and winking.

Allison laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.

We packed up our bags and set off again, walking along the side of the narrow country road. I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt as the sun grew stronger and wiped the sweat collected under my hat away. I glanced over at Allison. She was wearing a black V-neck shirt with sleeves that showed off her muscled arms and a leather jacket tied around her waist. Her dark jeans had holes in the knees, and there was a strip of duck tape wrapped around one of her boots.

Somehow, even in the apocalypse, she looked like she was about to step out of a magazine. I, on the other hand, looked like a bum. My red button up shirt had layers of dirt on it, and I didn’t even want to know what my black tank top would look like if it were white. My black jeans had road dust all over them that no amount of washing would get out.

Pre-apocalypse, I had an impeccable fashion sense. Perfect make-up, not a hair out of place, a different outfit for every day of the month. I turned heads when I walked. I could run in four-inch heels. And now, I was wearing the same thing every day, and it grated on my nerves. I knew it was dumb to worry about my clothes when there were things that wanted to eat me, but I couldn’t help it. Picking out an outfit was a daily ritual, and I almost felt a little lost without it.

“How did you get so good with the bow?” I asked Allison.

“I’ve been practicing since I was a kid,” Allison said, running her hand down part of the weapon which was slung diagonally across her torso. “I even won a couple of competitions. When shit hit the fan, it was the first thing I went to find. And it’s quieter than a gun, so that’s win-win.”

“All I’ve got is a knife,” I said. And my ability to sense death, which had saved my life on more than one occasion.

“You should get something bigger,” Allison advised. “Just in case.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Every so often, corpses wandered out of the trees and came towards us, but Allison’s arrows dispatched them with a cold efficiency. I watched her every time, impressed by her steady hands and quick reflexes.

At the end of the day, we came across a small town, though really, it was just a street with a gas station and five houses. “Might as well stop here for the night,” Allison said, yawning.

The street seemed quiet and empty, so we walked towards the nearest house. Allison took her bow in hand and knocked an arrow on the string, and I drew my knife, fingers white around the handle. I hated this part; opening the door and walking into the dark, never sure of what would be on the other side.

Allison raised her bow and pointed it at the door and motioned for me to open it. I took a deep, shaky breath, gripped the hot knob, and yanked the door open. Dust motes spilled out into the air. Silent darkness stared at us. Allison started to step into the room, but a shiver ran down my spine, and I reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her to a stop. “What–?” she began, but just then a corpse lunged out of the shadows and swiped a hooked hand at her face.

Allison cursed and stumbled back, knocking me off the steps. I slammed into the sidewalk, bruising my hip and scraping both my palms. The corpse came out of the house towards us. Allison loosed an arrow at its head, but she was off-balance, and it slammed into the wall of the house instead. “Shit.” She reached for another arrow, but she tripped over my legs and crashed to the ground with a cry.

“Get off,” I grunted, my knee throbbing.

Allison rolled to the side and scrambled up as the corpse reached the bottom of the steps. Half her arrows were scattered across the ground, and she scooped one up, plunging it into the corpse’s head when it stepped close enough. She yanked the arrow back out in a spray of blood, and the corpse collapsed.

I breathed a sigh of relief and let my head thump back against the sidewalk.

“How did you know it was there?” Allison’s shadow fell over me, and she held out a hand to help me up. I took it and groaned as she pulled me upright.

I rubbed at my knee and winced. “Just a feeling.” I shrugged and smirked at her, flicking my braid back over my shoulder.

“Well, thanks.” Allison smiled at me, and the expression dimpled her cheeks. “You saved my life.”

I shrugged one shoulder like it was nothing. Allison picked a rock up off the lawn and jumped up the steps so she could toss it inside the house. The stone made a loud thud when it wooden floor, and we bunched together as we listened for any answering sounds. There wasn’t a peep, but we still checked through all the nooks and crannies before we relaxed.

I dropped onto the couch with a sigh of relief after we knew the place was safe. The soft cushions felt like heaven underneath me.

“How did you hurt your knee?” Allison took off her quiver and sat down in a lazy boy. She found the lever on the side and popped the footrest out. “I noticed you’ve been limping.”

“I was running from a group of corpses, and I stepped in a hole,” I said. “I twisted it weirdly when I fell. It should be better in a few weeks.”

We ate a small dinner, and I pulled my book out of my bag, lighting one of Allison’s candles so I could read in the dying light. “What’s that?” Allison asked, cocking her head as she looked over at me.

“1984.” I held the book up so she could see the cover. “Science fiction isn’t my favorite genre, but it was the smallest book in my house.”

“That was smart,” Allison said, curling her legs up under her. “I wish I had something to read.”

“I could read aloud to you,” I suggested, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.

“I’d like that,” Allison said with a smile.

We passed maybe an hour in that way. My soft voice filled the small living room, and for that short amount of time, I forgot that there were dead things prowling the streets and everyone I ever knew was probably dead. Allison propped her chin up on her fist and stared across the room at me, a content expression on her face.

Finally, the candle guttered out, and I had to put the book down. “To be continued, I guess,” I said, tucking it back in my bag.

“There’s a bed upstairs.” Allison stood up and stretched, and I heard her spine crack. I prepared to stretch out on the couch, but Allison wasn’t done talking. “Would you mind sharing it with me? Nowadays, I have trouble sleeping on my own.”

“Oh, sure.” I climbed to my feet, heart fluttering. I followed her up the stairs and into the bedroom. It was a small bed, but the covers were clean and the pillows looked comfy. We shut the door, propping a chair under the knob.

I took off my shoes before sliding into the bed, amazed by how soft it was. The mattress was small enough that Allison and I had to press our sides together in order to fit. Her shoulder was a comforting weight against mine.

* * *

In the morning, I woke up alone, my shoulder cold. I cracked one eye open blearily. “Allison?” She wasn’t in the room, and the chair had been pulled away from the door. I sat up and rubbed at my face, trying to remember how to be awake. I wasn’t a morning person.

I pulled my boots on and went downstairs. “Allison?” I called again.

“In the kitchen.”

I slouched through the living room and into the small linoleum kitchen. Allison had found a box of cereal in one of the cabinets and was pouring it into bowls when I walked in. “There’s no milk,” she said.

“That’s alright.” I pulled out one of the chairs. “Is there coffee?”

“How do you feel about lukewarm coffee?”

I curled up my lip in disgust.

“Same.” Allison laughed and dropped a bowl of dry Fruit Loops in front of me. “Spoon?” She held out the silver utensil to me, but I shook my head. My fingers would work just fine.

I popped one of the red circles into my mouth as Allison sat down. She took a map from her jacket pocket and spread it out on the table. “We’re here,” she said, pointing at a tiny speck. “I think. I don’t think this town actually has a name.” She dragged her finger down the lines until it reached a star labeled Beacon Hills. “And this is where were heading.”

“You said two days?” I asked skeptically. It seemed like her finger had traced a very long distance between the two points.

“Maybe a little more depending on how quickly we walk.”

“Maybe we should look for a car before we leave,” I suggested, tossing another handful of cereal into my mouth.

“We can try, but I doubt we’ll find something in this small of a town.”

We finished our cereal and left the bowls on the table, though I tucked the rest of the cereal bag into my backpack, and then we searched the house before leaving. I went back into the bedroom and opened up the closet, but it was all old people clothing. I did find a nice necklace in a box on the end table, but it was long and would be easy to grab onto.

“I found aspirin!” Allison called triumphantly from down the hall.

“Score!” I replied.

We met back down in the living room. I found a flashlight and a set of batteries, and Allison had her aspirin and a box of tampons. “Double score,” I said when I saw it.

Allison opened the door carefully, checking to make sure that we were alone before we stepped out of the house. We checked around for a car, but all we found was a beat-up old pick-up truck without any keys.

So we started walking. My knee felt a little better this morning, but I still had a slight limp. Before it was even mid-morning, the sun turned into a blazing ball of hell that threatened to bake my skin to a crisp. I pulled the brim of my hat lower onto my head.

“So, Lydia Martin,” Allison kicked at a rock that was in her path, “what were you doing before the dead rose?”

“I was about to start my junior year of college,” I said, my heart sinking as I thought about it. “I was studying math and computer science at MIT.”

“Really?” Allison looked over at me with an impressed look on her face. “MIT? Wow, smart and pretty. Someone got dealt all the right cards.”

I flicked at my braid, trying to pretend I wasn’t embarrassed by the compliment. “What about you?”

“I was actually about to apply for the Police Academy,” Allison said. She spun in a quick circle to make sure that we were still alone.

“You wanted to be a cop?” I asked.

“That was the goal,” Allison said with a smile. “But it’s moot now, I guess.”

“Not necessarily,” I contradicted. “I bet someone’s going to fix this, and then things will get back to the way they used to be.”

Allison turned her head to look at me. “Do you really think so?”

I nodded firmly, even though the shroud of death fell over my shoulders like a leaden weight.

Allison smiled sadly. “I wish I could believe that. It just spread so fast and so far, and no one was prepared for it.”

“The military has gathered everyone into protective camps. They’re dealing with this, and the scientists will find a cure.” As I spoke, I convinced myself that I really believed it.

The conversation kind of killed the light-hearted mood Allison was trying to create, so we fell silent and focused on walking. We sat in the center of the road for a lunch break and then it was back to moving forward. The road never curved. It never turned. It barely dipped up and down. It just stretched on and on and on until I became convinced that we were walking in place.

When night began to fall, we stepped off the road and found a small clearing. Allison pulled a string of empty cans from her bag and looped it around a few trees and bushes until it formed a circle around us. We slept in shifts, but even when it was my turn to lie down, I couldn’t close my eyes. I felt to exposed lying there, convinced that any moment, I would hear the cans rattle, signaling something’s approach.

But the night remained silent and still, and the sun rose in the morning just like it always did.

My stiff neck cracked as I sat up. “Did you sleep at all?” Allison asked.

“No,” I said. “Did you?”

“No.”

She collected her cans, and we made our way back to the road. “It’s not far now,” Allison said, trying to put a bit of pep into her voice, but it fell flat.

I grunted in reply and hooked my thumbs around the straps of my pack. My feet throbbed from toe to heel, and my calves felt like they were stretched into lines of fire. The pain in my knee had turned into an iron spike, but I gritted my teeth and struggled to ignore it. After a few hours, Allison glanced over at me with concern. “Your limp is worse. Are you okay?”

“I’m peachy,” I ground out.

She saw the look in my eyes and didn’t protest, didn’t suggest that we stop.

* * *

We paused again for lunch, and I sat down with a sigh of relief. “Allison,” I began, turning a granola bar over in my fingers, “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but what are you going to do if you don’t find your father?”

Allison paused and gave me a dark look. “You’re right. I didn’t want to hear that.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s a very real possibility.”

“You don’t know my father,” Allison said. She closed up her bag of trail mix and put it away. “I’ve never met anyone more capable. He sells arms to law enforcement agencies.”

“He harvests arms and sells them to people?” I asked with a grin. “That’s a little morbid. How does he keep them fresh? Does he pickle them?”

“I don’t mean limbs, I mean guns…” Allison stopped talking when she looked up and saw my wicked expression. “Oh, that was a joke.”

My grin grew wider, and I winked at her.

“My dad has enough guns to supply a private army,” Allison continued. “He’s probably the most well equipped person for the apocalypse.”

“Then I’m sure he’s fine,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I totally believed it.

As we started to stand, the trees around us rustled. Allison grabbed an arrow out of her quiver and knocked to her bow string, and I pulled out my knife. My death sense wasn’t tingling, though, and I frowned. Whatever the rustling was, it wasn’t corpses.

Five men stepped out of the forest, each one holding a different sized gun. They looked like they hadn’t shaved since the first outbreak, and they were wearing dirty t-shirts that showed off their thick arm muscles. I moved closer to Allison, sensing danger.

“Can I help you?” Allison asked in a cold voice.

One of the men stepped forward out of the pack. He had long, shaggy black hair and a broken nose, and his eyes looked like two black pits. “That depends,” he drawled, his voice deep and rough. “What do you got in those packs?”

“Not much,” I said, matching Allison’s icy tone.

“Then you won’t mind if we have a little looks-y,” the man said, sauntering up to us. He held a shotgun across his body. For the moment, it was pointed at the ground, but I knew that it could snap up in a second and be aimed at our faces.

“We would mind, actually,” Allison said. Her eyes narrowed into a glare.

Three weeks, and people were already turning on each other. Maybe extreme danger brought out people’s true colors, made them think that the rules were gone and they could do whatever they wanted.

The man gestured with his gun. “It wasn’t a request.”

Allison jerked her bow up and pulled back the string. “If any of you takes another step, I’ll put an arrow through you.”

The man started to laugh, and his four companions joined in. “Can’t you count, girl? There are five of us and only two of you, and we’ve all got guns.”

“We don’t have anything of value,” I said. “Unless you have a strange need for tampons.”

A dark smile spread across the man’s face, and my death sense prickled a little bit. “Oh, you’ve gotten plenty of value,” the man sneered, and he waved for his friends to move closer.

“I mean it!” Allison yelled. “I’ll shoot you!”

“And then we’ll shoot both of you,” the man said. “So why don’t you put that little toy down, and no one will get hurt?”

Allison glanced at me, a panicked look in her eyes. “Put it down, Allison,” I said, reaching out and grabbing her arm so I could gently push it towards the ground. Allison released the tension on the bow string, and I nodded that she should put the arrow back in her quiver. She did so reluctantly.

I put my knife back in my belt just as the men reached us and held my hands up to show that they were empty. A blonde man grabbed me roughly by the arm as a second pulled Allison’s bow away. The man dragged me towards the forest, his fingers digging painfully into my flesh, and the black-haired man grinned at me as I passed him, raising his shotgun and shooting a corpse that had wandered out of the trees on the other side of the road.

Then he sauntered after us, gun propped on his shoulder, grinning widely. “Sorry for the rough treatment ladies.”

“No, you’re not,” I interrupted.

He ignored me. “New world order, you know? My name is Ezekiel. And you are?”

I scowled at him even as my knee trembled beneath me.

The man, Ezekiel, laughed and leaned in to pinch my cheek. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

At that, my heart sank. I’d had an inkling as to what these men really wanted, but I didn’t want to believe it. I shot a glance at Allison, and I found that her eyes were also wide with fear. Ezekiel laughed at our obvious terror and motioned for his men to pick up the pace.

* * *

We walked for half an hour, until we came to a clearing in the forest. The men had set up a ramshackle camp in the space. Strings of empty cans ran through the spaces between the trees at knee level, and five tents were grouped in a circle in the center. We stepped over the trip wire, and our captors shoved us towards the tents. I stumbled, and my knee gave out, spilling me to the ground.

“Lydia!” Allison cried. She dropped to her knees beside me.

“I’m fine,” I said, wincing.

“Take their packs,” Ezekiel said, and the two men who’d led us through the forest stepped forward and tore our backpacks from our shoulders.

“There’s no need to be rough,” Allison snapped, pulling her arm free of the last strap.

The man snarled at her and struck her across the face, driving her into the ground.

“Hey!” I yelled, smacking at his arm as he curled his fist around Allison’s shirt. The man shoved me away easily.

“That’s enough.” Ezekiel stepped smoothly in between the man and me and pulled his hand off of Allison’s shirt. “These are our guests. Let’s be nice to our guests.”

Ezekiel held out his hand to Allison, and she stared at it for a long moment without taking it. Finally, he shrugged and let his arm drop, walking off towards the circle of tents. I crawled over to Allison and grabbed her hand. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

She left out the ‘For now’ part.

The other four men sneered at us as they walked by, but they left us sitting there. Allison winced and sat up, and I let her lean up against me. “What are we going to do?” I asked, staring across the clearing at the men. One of them was starting a fire in a circle of the rocks as another dug into a blue cooler and pulled out several brown bottles.

“I have no idea,” Allison said.

“They didn’t tie us up, and they’re not watching,” I said, glancing back and forth between the men and the trees. “I bet we could sneak off and be gone before they realize it.” Just as I finished speaking, Ezekiel glanced up from the fire and over at us, raising his bottle in a salute. “Never mind,” I sighed. “We wouldn’t get far.”

“We can’t fight them,” Allison pointed out. “We’re out numbered, and we don’t have any weapons.”

My death sense tingled, but I couldn’t tell what it was trying to tell me. It was too faint and faraway. Allison and I sat side by side, our shoulders pressed together for support, watching the men for signs of trouble. They went through bottle after bottle of cheap beer and grew louder and louder as the night went on. I glanced at Allison and raised my eyebrows. That didn’t seem like the smartest idea ever created. After that, I started watching the perimeter of the clearing, just to make sure nothing could sneak up on us.

As darkness fell, one of the men, the blonde one, looked over at us and then hitched up his pants and started walking our way. “Shit, get up,” Allison hissed. She grabbed my arm, and we clambered hastily to our feet.

The blonde man leered at us, his steps lopsided. When I glanced down, I saw that Allison was gripping a rock tightly. But the man didn’t get within ten paces of us. A dark shape erupted out of the trees and slammed into him, bowling him over. They rolled across the clearing and into the string of cans which rattled and collapsed around them. The other four men looked up, surprised, angry expressions on their faces. They started to come towards us, but that was when the gunfire started.

Ezekiel cursed as the man beside him when down, a spray of blood flying from his head, and lifted his shotgun, spinning around in search of the shooter. Another bullet whizzed out of the trees and slammed into a man with two pistols. “Run!” the last man yelled at Ezekiel, and the two of them took off into into the trees.

Allison and I looked at each other with wide eyes, stunned by the sudden outbreak of violence. The dark blur disentangled itself from the sting of cans and stood up, revealing itself to be a man with short black hair. I thought I caught a hint of glowing yellow in his eyes before he stepped into the firelight, but it was gone before I could get a closer look.

“Hi,” he said, smiling brightly. “I’m Scott. Are you guys okay?”

Another man dropped out of a tall tree, mud smeared across his face as camouflage and a large assault rifle in his hands. His dark brown hair stuck up in every direction, and he wore a goofy grin on his face.

“And I’m Stiles,” he said, winking at me. He jogged over to his friend, Scott, and they bumped fists. “Dude, that was awesome.”


	3. Chapter Three

“We should get out of here,” Scott said, brushing dirt off his hands. “The noise and the gunfire has probably drawn dozens of zs towards our location.”

“Uh, right,” I said, shaking myself to get rid of the shock. I adjusted my hat and plucked a twig out of my braid. Allison took a deep breath, and then she picked her way hesitantly over to the campfire were our packs lay. She stuffed their contents back inside and then looted the rest of Ezekiel’s stuff, taking whatever would fit. Then she tossed her quiver and bow over her shoulder and threw my pack at me. She jogged back over and handed me my knife. I’d never been more glad to feel its weight in my hand.

“Let’s go,” Allison said, looking over at Scott and Stiles. Scott didn’t seem to have a weapon of any kind, but when I glanced over at the man he’d taken down, all I saw was blood and torn skin.

She pulled a compass from her pocket and stared at it for a moment and then started walking to the left. “Woah, woah, woah.” Stiles spun rapidly around, nearly falling over, and I watched his large gun nervously. “Who says we’re going that way?”

“I say,” Allison said without looking over her shoulder.

Stiles glanced over at Scott who shrugged. I walked past them towards after Allison, and they fell into line behind me. They jogged a few steps to catch up. “Where are you guys heading?” Scott asked. He had an earnest face and puppy dog eyes.

“Beacon Hills,” Allison said. “I’m looking for my father.”

“Hey, we’re from Beacon Hills,” Stiles said. He talked very quickly.

“Really?” Allison glanced over her shoulder at him, hope sparking in her eyes. “Do you what the situation is? Is it overrun? Safe?”

Stiles shook his head. “I don’t know. We were on a camping trip in Canada when the outbreak happened. We’re actually trying to get back there as well, but we’re kind of lost. I’ve never been good with directions.”

“Lucky for you, I have a map,” Allison said. “We’re not far.”

* * *

 We walked through the night, stumbling over tree roots as we tried to find our way back to the road. Scott had a flashlight, but it was small and slowly running out of juice. Allison led the way while I struggled to keep my leg from collapsing. Stiles dropped back to walk behind me, his gun braced across the back of his shoulders like a board and his arms draped over either side. He grinned widely at me. “So do you have a boyfriend or anything?”

“He died,” I said, and an awkward expression fell over Stiles’ face.

“Oh shit, sorry,” he said.

“They got into our house before the soldiers could finish clearing them out,” I explained. It was the first time I’d said it aloud to anyone. “I watched it happen.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles repeated, voice softer this time. “It must’ve been awful.”

“It was,” I said, staring down at the ground.

“What was his name?” Stiles asked.

“Jackson.”

“Wow, his name makes him sound like a right prick.” Stiles hesitated and cringed. “Sorry, that was supposed to be a joke. Bad timing.”

A laugh came out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Actually, he could be a bit of a prick. He was captain of the lacrosse team. Prick-hood sort of came with the title.”

Stiles grinned his overly enthusiastic grin at me, and I rolled my eyes. “You’re weird, did you know that.”

“Scott tells me this every day.”

“Where did you learn to use an assault rifle?” I asked him. Up ahead, Scott and Allison walked together, talking about something I couldn’t hear. The trees around us were still dark and silent, and for that, I was grateful. I was too tired to deal with any corpses.

Stiles patted his weapon. “Lots of video games.” He jerked his head to the side. “Also, my dad is the Beacon Hills sheriff. I grew up around guns.”

“People let you touch guns?” I asked with a smirk.

“Hey, I’m very careful.” Stiles proceeded to trip over a hidden root and crashed to the ground, the rifle flying out of hands and rolling away. “Ow…” he wheezed, lying with a hand pressed to his chest.

I leaned over him and cocked an eyebrow as Allison and Scott turned around to see what the commotion was. “You were saying?”

“Help up please.”

I grabbed Stiles’ waving hand and pulled him upright. He popped to his feet in a flurry of motion that almost knocked me over. “Thanks,” he said, huffing out a breath with his hands on his hips.

“Weird,” I repeated, and he shrugged, grinning.

“Everything alright back there?” Scott asked.

“Your friend is a spazz,” I told him.

“I knew this already,” Scott agreed.

Stiles just stood there, grinning.

After he retrieved his sniper rifle, we kept walking, finally breaking out of the forest and back onto the road we’d left the day before. A lone corpse bumbled towards us, arms raised, jaw open. Scott snarled, and I saw that flash of yellow again, but Allison pulled an arrow from her quiver. “I got this.” She drew back her bow string, and the arrow whipped through the air, burying itself in the corpse’s skull. Scott and Stiles looked suitably impressed. “Wow. That’s impressive,” Scott said, looking at Allison. I felt a weird twinge go through my stomach.

“Years of practice.” Allison brushed one of her loose curls away from her face.

We were still on the move when the sun peeped its head over the tops of the trees. When it was light of enough to see, we paused and let our packs drop to the road. I sat down with a relieved sigh. Allison took out her map and spread it across the concrete. “We got a little off track last night what with our…detour, but I think we’re only about three or four hours away.”

“We’ll probably start seeing more corpses soon,” I added. “Especially if Beacon Hills has been overrun. We need to be on our guard.” I yawned, the edges of my cracked lips stretching painfully, and Allison rubbed my back.

“We haven’t thanked you for saving us yet,” she said, smiling at Scott and Stiles.

Scott shrugged. “It was nothing.”

“How did you know we were there?” I asked.

“We heard the men yelling and thought we’d investigate,” Scott said. “It’s a good thing we did. It seems like we got there just in time.”

It was too sunny to sleep, and we felt too exposed out there on the road, so we stood up and started moving again. Stiles offered me his water bottle as the heat grew more intense, and I took it from him with a smile.

After a few hours, Scott stopped suddenly and lifted his head, a puzzled expression on his face. He held up his hand, motioning for us to stop. “What is it?” Allison asked.

Stiles left my side and moved up to his friend, putting his hand on Scott’s shoulder. “I smell smoke,” Scott said. I sniffed at the air, but I couldn’t smell anything. “It’s not far. I think it’s coming from Beacon Hills.”

“You mean the town is on fire?” Allison gasped, a hand going to her mouth.

“Hard to say.” Scott shook his head. “It could be any number of things.”

“Well, we’d better go find out,” Allison said.

She took the lead and started walking, her bow gripped in her hand just in case. I hurried after her, my stomach raw with nerves. Stiles finally started holding his rifle like a normal person who wasn’t about to shoot his foot off at any moment.

Then I could smell the smoke too. It was sharp and acrid, and it curled up into the blue sky in thick, curling tendrils. Allison broke into a jog, Scott right beside her. “We can hang back, if you want,” Stiles said to me. “If you can’t run on your knee.”

“I can run fine,” I snapped.

Stiles shrugged, and he followed me as I jogged after Allison and Scott. We caught up to them quickly, and as the four of us turned the next corner, a tall, ramshackle wall appeared in front of us. Allison slowed down, and I nearly bumped into her, but I managed to skid to a halt just in time.

“Wow,” Stiles said. “That’s new.”

“No kidding,” Scott agreed.

The wall was made out of a random assortment of objects. Cars were pressed together, and the spaces were filled in with planks of wood and poured cement. Fuzzy figures with guns marched along the top of the wall, keeping watch. A sign hung off the heavy metal gate that read, “Safe Haven”.

“Hello!” Scott called as he walked forward, his hands cupped around his mouth.

Instantly, the guards stiffened and turned towards us, lifting their guns defensively. Scott stopped moving and lifted his hands high in the air. “Woah, hey, we’re cool! We’re not infected! We’re clean, we’re cool!”

“Scott?” one of the guards called, shading his eyes with one hand.

Beside me, Stiles gasped and rushed forward a few steps before Scott could stop him. The guards on top of the wall shouted with surprise and lifted their weapons. “Dad!” Stiles yelled, and the guard who knew Scott’s name instantly dropped from the wall and came running towards us.

I shared a nervous look with Allison who had her bow clenched in one hand.

The man’s form came into sharper focus as he got closer, and I saw that he was wearing a drab green jacket with a sheriff’s star pinned to the front, a sand-colored uniform shirt underneath. Stiles broke into a run, and the two met halfway between us and the wall, slamming into each other and enveloping the other in a tight hug.

“That’s his dad?” I asked Scott.

“Yeah,” Scott said with a grin. “Oh man, I’m so glad he’s alive.”

Scott hurried after Stiles, and the sheriff pulled away from his son just long enough to ruffle Scott’s hair. The hug broke, but the sheriff kept one arm wrapped around Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles waved at Allison and me to come over.

Allison lowered her bow, and the two of us walked over to join the men. Stiles introduced us. “These are Allison and Lydia. And this is my dad, Sheriff Stilinski.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Allison said, and I nodded at him, lips quirked up in a brief smile.

Sheriff Stilinski smiled at us and glanced around, eyeing the darkening trees. “We should get inside. Before something comes.”

Stiles nodded in agreement, and we followed his father towards the looming wall and the metal gate in the middle of it. “Open up!” Sheriff Stilinski banged on the gate, and it slid open, revealing two men with guns, dressed in army fatigues. They waved us into the city and then locked up behind us.

“You know these people, Sheriff?” one of them asked. He had carefully shaved blonde hair and a really ugly, thick moustache.

“This is my son and his best friend, and some people they met on the road,” Sheriff Stilinski said. He still hadn’t let go out Stiles.

“We’ll have to give them check-ups,” the second man said. His hair was as equally shaved as his companion, though he didn’t have a horrible moustache. I was surprised he was able to get his face so smooth. I wondered if he had a hidden stash of razors somewhere, and I wondered if I could get a hold of one somehow. My armpits were starting to itch.

The blonde man waved two more soldiers over, and they jogged up to us, guns held steady. They were both women with their hair bound up in tight buns. The redhead was enveloped in a shroud of death, and I stared at her. It would come for her in four days, and she wouldn’t see it.

I didn’t warn her. I’d tried to tell people before, others who I’d seen the death shroud covering, but they never believed me, or they gave me the pat answer of, “We’re all going to die sooner or later”. And so they did, in different ways and different amounts of pain, but the result was always the same.

The redhead took Allison by the arm and led her away, and the other woman jerked her head at me. I followed her as the two men led Scott and Stiles in the other direction. I looked around the town as we walked. It seemed like we were on the main street, and the army had taken the whole place over. Their large trunks took up half of the road, and there were green tents set up every few feet. Soldiers wearing fatigues and carrying guns hurried in every direction, the endless flow of green and grey occasionally broken by someone in a Beacon Hills police uniform. I didn’t see any regular citizens anywhere near the army camp.

The women led Allison and I into one of the green tents. It was surprisingly spacious inside with two padded doctor’s chairs sitting in the center of the floor in front of a metal table filled with medical equipment.

“Strip,” the redhead ordered, and she and her companion stared at us with unblinking eyes.

“Neither of us have been bit,” I said

“You could just be saying that because you know we’ll kill you if you have been bitten,” the other woman said. She had a long scar curving through her cheek.

“Neither. Of us. Have been. Bit,” I repeated, fixing both soldiers with my fiercest glare.

Her scowl was as good as mine. Allison tugged on myself, pulling my attention to her. “Just do it.”

I flicked at my braid contemptuously, but I followed her lead as she pulled off her shirt. We stripped down to our underwear, and then the soldiers circled us like hawks, examining every inch of our skin. The scar-faced woman even lifted both my arms up so she could check my armpits.

Finally, they declared us clean and let us put our clothes back on. The redhead handed me a thin packet of papers within a manila folder, and when I flipped it open I saw a map, a list of rules, and a brief explanation of the army’s plan for the town.

“This is everything you need to know about the situation in Beacon Hills,” the soldier said and ushered us out of the tent, leaving us to find our own way back to Scott and Stiles.

I rolled the sleeves of my shirt up and gave Allison a bitter look. “Well, that was ten minutes of my life I’m never getting back.”

“Let’s just get moving before they decide they want to do a few more tests.”

We hurried away from the tent, heading straight back up the main street. Scott and Stiles were waiting for us, standing beside the sheriff. “I feel violated,” Stiles grumbled as we reached them, and Scott looked just as uncomfortable.

“You four can stay with me, if you want,” Sheriff Stilinski said. “Since I’m the sheriff, the army didn’t make me take in any refugees, though I would have been happy too.”

“How many people are here?” I asked. I tucked my manila folder under my arm as we started to walk, Sheriff Stilinski leading the way. We turned off the main road, and civilians began to appear. They all looked the same: scared, tired, worn out. A few people carried baskets of clothing and others crates of canned food, and they all moved from place to place without really looking at each other. Children ran back and forth between the houses, darting through the forest of legs, and they seemed oblivious to the atmosphere of dismay. Children always bounced back more easily than adults did.

“There’s the town’s population,” Sheriff Stilinski said. “Plus about another three hundred refugees who have been streaming in over the past few weeks. This is me.” He pointed at a small, two-story house with brown paneling and chipper green bushes marching around the base. “Scott, I assume you don’t mind sharing a room with Stiles, and girls, you can have my bed if you want. I’ll take the couch.”

“Oh, no, we wouldn’t want to put you out,” Allison protested.

Sheriff Stilinski waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve spent plenty of nights on the couch. It’s no problem.”

I did feel a little bad, but I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to sleep in a bed, so I spoke up before Allison could. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

The sheriff nodded and unlocked the door to his house, revealing a dark front entrance. We filed inside one by one, but he didn’t turn the lights on. “We only get power for a few hours each day, on a rotating schedule,” he explained.

“Do you get hot water?” I asked, and excitement surged through me as he nodded.

“I’ll have power tomorrow morning at 10. You can all shower then.”

“I’ll show everyone upstairs,” Stiles said. “And then there will be dinner?” He looked over at his father hopefully.

“There’ll be dinner,” Sheriff Stilinski promised with a smile.

Scott cheered, pumping his fist in the air, his eyes looking like those of a puppy dog.

Stiles beckoned to us and led us up the staircase at the back of the hallway. Scott disappeared through a door to the left, and Allison and I followed Stiles further into the house. We turned the corner, and Stiles opened the first door we came to. “This is my dad’s room.”

Sheriff Stilinski’s room was clean but a little plain. A queen-sized bed dominated the center of the floor, and there was a chest of drawers and a paper laden desk along one wall. A small table sat beside the bed, a photograph and a little vase of flowers on top.

Allison and I left our bags inside and then headed back downstairs, Scott rejoining us as we passed by Stiles’ room. The scent of boiling herbs filled the lower level, and Sheriff Stilinski poked his head out of the kitchen. “How does soup sound?”

“Will it be warm?” An excited expression flitted across Allison’s face.

“Yep. I’ve got a little gas stove I use when I don’t have power. Stiles, set the table.”

“You got it,” Stiles said and grinned at us. “Take a seat, guys.”

Allison, Scott, and I lowered ourselves into chairs around the rectangular dining table and stared at each other. It was more than a little strange to be in such a domestic setting after spending so long in the wilderness.

Stiles bustled out of kitchen, carrying a load of plates and cups. He spread everything out across the table and then disappeared again in search of silverware. He joined us at the table with another one of his cock-eyed grins, and a few minutes later, Sheriff Stilinski came out with a large crockpot of soup. He set it down in between us on a couple of hot plates and sat down at the head of the table, motioning for us to dig it.

Scott instantly attacked the food, though it didn’t take long for the rest of us to get in on the action. It was chicken noodle soup, full of thick noodles and large chunks of chicken and vegetables.

We ate in silence, too concerned with the act of shoveling food into our mouths to bother with conversation. Scott let out a burp when he finished and leaned back in his chair, though he looked like he wished there was more food.

Allison looked at Sheriff Stilinski, a serious expression on her face. “I’m looking for my father. He said he was coming here to meet a friend. His name is Chris Argent. Have you seen him?”

Sheriff Stilinski rubbed at his chin. “I don’t recognize the name, but there are a lot of new people in town that I don’t know yet,” he continued quickly when he saw how Allison’s face fell. “We can check around in the morning. The army has a list of all the refugees so they can keep track of them.”

Allison nodded in agreement, but she couldn’t hide all of her disappointment.

We helped the Stilinskis clean up, and then Stiles and Scott disappeared into their room. The sheriff said goodnight as well, leaving Allison and I to find our way back upstairs.

I stripped down to my underwear, glad to be out of my sweat-tacky clothes, and pulled my book out of my bag, flopping down on the bed. Allison paced back and forth in front of me, chewing on the edge of her thumb.

“We’ll find your father,” I said to reassure her. “I’m sure he’s here.”

Allison gave me wan smile. She sat down on the edge of her bed and peeled off her jacked and pants, dropping them to the floor. I flushed, embarrassed for an unknown reason as she took of her shirt, revealing the bump of her spine and the curve of her shoulders. I quickly looked away before she could catch me staring.

She lay down beside me, our shoulders not touching, though I could still feel the pulse of heat coming off her skin. “Will you read to me again?”

“Sure.” I open the book to the page we left off on, and my voice filled the small room. I read until her eyes drifted shut and her breathing evened out. I shut the book and then my eyes, and it didn’t take long for the darkness to claim me.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this story is a side fic, so updates are going to be slow. As proven by the couple of months in between this chapter in the last, lol. I mainly work on this if I'm feeling a little stuck on my main fics.

The shower was heavenly. It was unbelievable. It felt as if I had transcended my body and touched God. For seven amazing minutes, hot water thundered down on my head and my shoulders and streamed down my back. For seven minutes, I scrubbed the layers of dirt from my skin with a bar of white soap, and lathered my greasy hair full of shampoo. Brown water rained around my feet and down the drain.

At the end of the seven minutes, I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off with a clean towel provided by Sheriff Stilinski, twisting my hair up inside on the top of my head. Stiles had given me a pair of his sweatpants and a shirt to change into, though they were both too big. I had to cinch the drawstring as tight as it would go and tie it off, and the shirt felt a little like a balloon.

I stepped out of the bathroom, and Scott took my place, grinning that puppy-dog grin of his. He had nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, and I unapologetically took in an eyeful of his well defined chest and arms.

I found Allison downstairs in the kitchen, wrapped up in one of the sheriff’s bathrobes and sipping a cup of coffee. She passed me a mug, and its heavenly nature nearly eclipsed that of the shower.

“The sheriff offered to help me find my father today,” she said.

“I’ll help, if you want,” I said, taking another sip of the coffee.

A grin broke out across her face. “I would like that.”

Twenty minutes later, everyone was gathered in the living room. Scott and Allison were also wearing Stiles’ clothing while theirs were being washed. “Stiles and I are going to go find my mom,” Scott said, smiling. “Sheriff Stilinski says she spends most of her time at the hospital.”

“We’re going to check the lists and look for my dad.” Allison looked at Sheriff Stilinski for confirmation, and he nodded.

“Good luck,” Stiles said.

“We’ll meet back here for dinner,” the sheriff decided. He glanced over at Allison and me. “You’ll both need to leave your weapons here.”

“Why?” Allison demanded

The sheriff nodded. “It’s the rule. Only the soldiers and the police are allowed to carry weapons within the walls.

“Even my knife?” I asked.

“Even your knife. We had a few fights break out. Weapons were drawn. People got hurt.”

“What if something happens?”

“The wall is secure,” Sheriff Stilinski assured us. “It’s not going to break without ample warning.”

I didn’t like it, and I could see that Allison didn’t either, but we both reluctantly stacked our weapons on the coffee table.

Sheriff Stilinski led the way outside, and Stiles and Scott broke away, waving goodbye as they hurried off to find Scott’s mother. “They keep the list on a bulletin outside the army headquarters,” Sheriff Stilinski said. “It’s this way.”

We followed him back to the main street where the army had set up shop, and once again, I noticed that no citizens wandered that part of the city. The registry of refugees sat out in the open, under the awning of an announcement board. When Allison spotted it, she took off running, skidding to a halt before its pedestal. Sheriff Stilinski and I waited beside her as she desperately paged through the slim book.

I reached out with my death sense, wondering if I could get a glimpse at the town’s fate. I didn’t have a lot of control over my power; the feelings mostly came and went as they pleased, but sometimes, if I concentrated hard, I could send out a tendril of thought towards a specific target.

“There, there he is!” Allison’s excited shout interrupted me before I could get any real predictions. She jabbed her finger at the page. “It says he’s staying at the Motel 8.”

Her face lit up with a brilliant light, the smile on her face full of joy. For the first time, she looked her age, rather than like someone years older. “That’s amazing,” I told her, though my stomach ached with the thought that I would never see my family again. I knew that if they weren’t dead yet, they would be soon. The death sense told me so.

“Is the Motel 8 far?” she asked the sheriff.

“About a twenty-minute walk,” he said.

“Could you show us?”

So Sheriff Stilinski took us on another little tour of the town. We left the army headquarters in the opposite direction as his house and threaded our way through the streets. Nearly every available foot of clear space had been turned into living space. Neighborhoods of tents filled up the spaces between the neighborhoods of houses, and clotheslines ran in tangled lines. The smell of campfire smoke wafted through the air, mostly masking the scent of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes. My limp came back as we walked, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been, so I stayed quiet.

Twenty minutes later, the Motel 8 sprung up in front of us. Someone had spray painted ‘No Vacancy’ on the sign. “Did the registry say which room he was in?” Sheriff Stilinski asked as he held the door open for us.

“No,” Allison answered. “It just said Motel 8.”

There wasn’t a receptionist waiting behind the desk, but there was an open ledger book, and as we drew close, I saw that it contained a list of the hotel’s occupants. Allison found her father’s name. He was on the third floor, room 308.

The elevators weren’t working, so we took the stairs. I gritted my teeth against the pain in my knee and hobbled resolutely upwards. Allison practically ran down the hallway to her father’s door, skidding to a halt before it. I saw her hand shake a little as she raised it to knock.

“Coming!” called a low, slightly gruff voice. Allison’s breath caught in her chest.

The lock clicked, and then the door swung open, revealing a man with short grey hair and a heavy growth of beard on his face. His pale green eyes lit up when he saw Allison, and his hand went to his mouth, his breath catching. “Dad?” Allison asked quietly.

“Allison.” The word came out of him as a puff of air, and he grabbed Allison into a huge hug, lifting her up onto her toes. I saw a tear leak out of his eye. “Oh my God.” He pulled away long enough to plant a kiss on her forehead, and Allison’s cheeks were wet. I smiled, happy for her, but it was a bittersweet sort of happiness. I would never have this kind of reunion.

“How did you get here?” Allison’s father held her at arm’s length so he could examine her, see if she was hurt. He finally noticed Sheriff Stilinski and me standing in the hallway. “Sheriff Stilinski, hello. Did you find my daughter?”

“She found us. She came to the doors with Scott and my son.”

“Would you like to come in?” Allison’s father asked. He wrapped his arm around Allison’s waist as he stepped aside to let us enter. I’d never been in a Motel 8 before, but it looked pretty much as I expected. Dingy, grey carpet, ugly wallpaper, tiny bathroom, and lumpy bed which Allison perched on with her father, leaving the two chairs in the room for the sheriff and me.

“When you didn’t show up at the cabin, I decided to come find you,” Allison explained. “Why didn’t you show?”

Chris glanced over at Sheriff Stilinski and me, his eyes locked and dark. A shiver ran down my spine. I sensed death on him, and it was not his own. “The hunting trip ended up being a little bit more complicated than Russ and I expected, and then when the dead rose, we came here for refuge. The plan was just to resupply and then head out for the cabin, but the army isn’t letting people leave.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Where is your friend?” I asked.

“He’s got a tent down on the street,” Chris answered. “And who are you?”

“Lydia Martin,” I answered. “Allison saved my life, and we’ve been travelling together.”

Chris stared at me for a moment longer than seemed appropriate, and something flashed through his eyes, and I suddenly felt nervous, convinced that he knew about my death sense. I looked away from him, towards the window at the back of the room. The view was blocked by the building beside the hotel.

“What were you hunting?” Sheriff Stilinski asked. “Did you catch anything?”

“Elk,” Chris said. “And we caught one, but the army confiscated it when we arrived.”

My death sense flared up suddenly, more powerfully than I was used to, and I gasped, a hand flying to my mouth. I turn it into a cough to try and cover it, but Chris still looked at me with an inscrutable expression in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Allison asked.

“Swallowed some dust,” I choked out.

Chris Argent didn’t kill something. My death sense didn’t wake up for animal killings. No, Chris Argent killed someone.

 

Allison decided to stay with her father for a while, so Sheriff Stilinski and I left, shutting the door behind us. I was uncertain if I should tell the sheriff what I suspected, but how did I explain that I had some weird magical power to sense death, so I kept my mouth shut.

Sheriff Stilinski had to go back to work, so he dropped me off at his house and gave me a smile, saying he’d be back around dinnertime. I stood in the entry hall and stared into the empty house, wondering what I was supposed to do with myself until then.

It was strange, being somewhere safe. Outside any sort of walls, you had to make sure to keep track of every single thing. Check all the rooms of the building you were in, every nook and cranny. Make sure you had food, if you didn’t, try to find some. Search for supplies either way. Set up a perimeter if you were alone. Be constantly worried that you’d missed something and that mistake was going to get you killed.

So I felt like there was _something_ I needed to be doing, something to check, to search, to prepare. But there was nothing, so I forced myself to look through the bookshelf in the living room and then sit down on the couch. But the words of the book, some espionage thriller, kept jumping around, and after I read the first sentence five times, I slammed the door shut with a frustrated sigh.

I explored the Stilinski’s house, which may not have been the politest thing to do, but I was bored, and I didn’t think they would really mind. The front door opened while I was rifling through the sheriff’s room, and I jumped guiltily and quickly scooted out of there. “Hello?” I called.

“It’s me!” Stiles yelled up the stairs.

I hurried down to meet him, finding him alone in the entry hall. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Scott found his mom. He’s going to stay there for a while.” Stiles smiled. The expression came easily to him, even with everything that had happened.

“That’s great,” I said, but a wave of sadness still washed through me.

Stiles picked up on my change of emotion. “What’s the matter?”

“My family is probably dead,” I said quietly, looking down at the ground.

“You don’t know for sure?”

“They went to a refugee camp.”

“Then they’re probably fine.” Stiles grinned at me but I just gave him a look.

“No, they’re not.”

Stiles cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow. “How do you know? Did you go with them? Did you see the camp get overrun?”

I shook my head. “I just know.”

“How can you just know?” Stiles asked.

I thought about that refugee camp. I didn’t know exactly where it was or what it was called, but the death sense poured through me, and I knew that everyone there was dead. I stared at Stiles, wondering if he would believe me if I told him. He had wide, earnest eyes, that grin still playing faintly on his lips.

“It will sound crazy,” I began slowly. I’d never told another person about my death sense, not my parents, not even Jackson. Stiles just nodded for me to continue. I took a deep breath. “I have this…I call it my death sense. Sometimes, I can tell when people are going to die, or I can sense when those things are near. That’s how I know the refugee camp is gone.”

Stiles stared into my eyes, his expression deeply contemplative. “A death sense?”

“I know it sounds crazy.” I looked away from him and moved into the living room, my arms folded around my middle, suddenly certain that I made a mistake in telling him.

“I believe you,” Stiles said, and I spun to face him, my eyes wide.

“What?”

“I believe you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged and winked at me. “Let’s just say I’ve seen my own fair share of crazy things.”

I smiled at him, relief washing through me, my knees going very slightly weak. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“My lips are sealed.” He drew a line across his mouth with a finger.

“Thanks.”

“Hey, I’m going to go try and find my friend. Do you want to come with? He lives on the other side of town.”

“Sure,” I replied. It sounded better than just loitering around the house.

We left the Stilinski residence and set off at a brisk pace through the streets. Stiles nattered on in a practically nonstop stream, telling me about all the crazy shenanigans he and Scott got into in their pre-apocalypse days. A guy by the name of Derek made an appearance in most of the stories as well, and when Stiles talked about him, his whole face lit up, and I smiled, detecting a crush. Apparently, they got Derek arrested when they first met, though Stiles was a little vague on the details as to why.

It took us about forty minutes to cross the town, but then we found ourselves stopped by the wall. “Fuck!” Stiles yelled, staring up at it, and his shout made a couple of guards glance down at us, but they didn’t really seem to care about two teenagers.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Derek lives in the forest, just outside of town.”

I nodded. “Outside the wall. Maybe he moved into town somewhere. We can go look at the list.”

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles looked and sounded like he was on the verge of panic, and he stared at the wall with his fists clenched. I had to grab his arm and pull him away because he seemed to be rooted to the spot.

Another forty minutes, and we were back on the other side of town. I could tell Stiles wanted to go faster, to run, but he saw my bum knee and forced himself to slow down. I felt bad for holding him back, but before long, we were on the military street again, and Stiles broke into a sprint to get to the ledger. By the time I got there, he had already flipped through all the pages and thrown the book to the ground. Luckily, there were no army men around to see him.

“He’s not in there,” I said. Stiles shook his head, face contorted with anger and fear. “What do you want to do?”

The smirk came back, a ridiculously mischievous smirk that made me think whatever plan he had was a very bad one. “How would you and Allison feel about joining Scott and me on a little expedition over the wall?”


End file.
